Nikunen, K. (2019). Media solidarities. Emotions, power and justice in the digital age. London: Sage. 208 pp.

Abstract

In an increasingly globalizing world, knowledge about catastrophes, suffering and injustice is mainly gained through traditional and, increasingly, social media. Besides this primary informative function, media also play an important social role. They often act as public fora for, and producers of, collective emotional support, therapy, solidarity, and charity, both for the people affected and the broader community. As people's ability to function as political subjects and to act in solidarity largely depends on their capacity to understand, feel, imagine, and critically think about these issues and their causes, media play an essential role in providing spaces for these practices.Kaarina Nikunen investigates in her interdisciplinary book Media solidarities. Emotions, power and justice in the digital age the new, self-developed concept of 'media solidarities', and this from a text, production, and reception perspective. Media solidarities refer to the different ways in which media create, shape, disseminate, materialize, and engage in expressions, participations, and representations of solidarity. Underpinning these practices and the presented studies is 'the media solidarity paradox'. While in the age of neoliberalism, various economic, political, and technological developments have eroded traditional solidarity structures, there are simultaneously more mediated solidarity expressions and calls.By discussing, examining, and linking, both theoretically and empirically, various fields, theories, concepts, and moral and practice-based perspectives, Media solidarities proves to be a wide-ranging and innovative contribution to the literature on media and solidarity. More concretely, the work's focus, central argument, and relevance can be summarized by four key approaches. First, Nikunen theoretically extends the 'ethical turn' in media studies by moving beyond the often used sociological and political theories about solidarity and related conceptions of 'we' and engages in post-colonial and feminist perspectives of dissonance and 'common differences'. Second, she empirically and analytically extends current research. Whereas most studies focus on news coverage and humanitarian communication from a text and, to a lesser extent, production dimension, this book critically examines media production, reception, and, to a lesser extent, rep-